Racial Slurs Used by Kenmore East Girls Basketball Team

I received a phone call this morning from the parents of Tyra Batts a sophomore at Kenmore East High School. Her mother and father explained to me that Tyra is the only African American player on the varsity basketball team at Kenmore East, that has a tradition/ritual that they do before every game; they hold hands together as a team, pray, and at the end of the prayer they say: “1-2-3 and then the “N” word”, at the end. Now remember Tyra is the only African American on the team and her parents think that this tradition/ritual has been going on now for at least 2-3 years.

Now Tyra has been refusing to say the “N” word at the end of the prayer because she has been raised in a home that does not practice this form of stupidity. Well one of the girls got upset with Tyra and called her a black “B” word and a fight ensued and now Tyra has been suspended from Kenmore East High School. I called the school to get their side of the story, but no representative at the school was available for comment.

Have most of the youth in our community become so manipulated and mind controlled by society that they devalue the very essence and origin of who they are as African people on this planet; I mean manipulated so much that they just accept the conditioning and are completely unaware of being degraded, and degrading themselves. Not aware and conscious of what they are doing and what is being done to them by others!

I applaud Tyra Batts because she was able to see wrong in the devaluing of herself, her family, her culture and her community by others and stood up to it!

Update: December 8th 4:17pm

The Buffalo News has just posted an article about what is happening at Kenmore East High School